zSpace, Inc. Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Hello, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss C-SPACE's financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31st, 2025. Joining us today are C-SPACE Chief Executive Officer, Paul Kellenberger, Chief Financial Officer, Eric De Oliveira, and Greg Robles from Investor Relations. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for analyst questions. Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Robles as he reads the company's safe harbor statement. Greg, please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call may be considered forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current expectations and beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Additionally, we may discuss certain key business metrics which are non-GAAP financial measures. A description of these non-GAAP measures and any comparison to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found on our earnings release on the Investor Relations section of our website. Now, I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of ZSpace, Paul Kellenberger.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our earnings call. I am Paul Kellenberger, CEO of ZSpace, and with me is Eric D'Olivera, our Chief Financial Officer. We're excited to share ZSpace's performance and the progress we've made advancing our strategic priorities. Our fourth quarter results reflect our continued focus on advancing our strategy and controlling what we can control. During the quarter, our software and services revenue continued to comprise over 50% of total revenue, contributing the gross margin expansion of nearly 850 basis points. This performance was driven by strong customer renewals and the continued adoption of our software offerings which is a key part of our strategy and a testament to our execution and discipline focus on delivering value to our customers despite ongoing macroeconomic and funding uncertainty. As we formally announced in late Q4 2025 we made structural changes in the business to align to the macro headwinds in the business we saw throughout 2025. We continue to look for ways to improve our business both top line and bottom line as we get close to finalizing Q1 in addition in January and more recently we have announced additional capital via planet 1 and 3i as well as announcing last week the additional restructuring of our ITRA and FISA debt during the quarter we continue to advance our strategy by expanding both the capabilities of our platform and the breadth of our customer engagements across K-12, CTE, and workforce pathways. We also strengthened our product portfolio with the launch of Z Stylus One, our next-generation AI-enabled stylus designed to simplify AR deployment and enhance precision across our Inspire and Imagine systems. The new Z Stylus One showcases breakthrough embedded sensors powered by machine learning algorithms that eliminates the need for an external sensor module or embedded tracking in the laptop early feedback from customers and partners has been very positive and we expect this product to support broader adoption of our next-generation platforms as our customers upgrade their hardware we also achieve meaningful customer ways across several regions and program areas. In Pennsylvania, the Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center strengthens its dental assistant program through the use of ZSpace AR-VR technology, leveraging ZSpace Inspire2 and the ZSpace Dental Anatomy application to improve students' understanding of dental structures, support diverse learners, and enhance preparation for hands-on clinical skills. In California Mayfair High School has established a 36-stations vSpace Inspire AR VR laptop lab where students interact with immersive simulations, applications, and guided lessons aligned to CTE and core academic subjects. The lab serves as a central hub where teachers across the campus can bring classes to explore career pathways through interactive 3d experiences demonstrating how dedicated immersive learning can drive cross-departmental adoption and provide students with early exposure to high demand career pathways and more recently zspace highlighted the long-standing success of its immersive augmented and virtual reality learning platform across Atlanta Public Schools or APS where students have used AR VR technology since 2020 sorry since 2015 to deepen STEM learning and explore career pathways. Over nearly a decade Atlanta Public Schools has integrated ZSpace immersive learning experiences across elementary middle and high school classrooms giving students hands-on opportunities to explore complex scientific concepts and practice real-world career skills in safe simulated environments. Their long-term success underscores the durability of our platform and the impact we can achieve as districts expand immersive learning from early grades through workforce preparation. Finally, our Career Explorer, powered by Career Coach AI, was formally recognized with Tech and Learning's VESTA 2025 Award of Excellence. This recognition reinforces the value our customers are seeing as they adopt immersive career exploration tools that engage students through real-world simulations and align directly to emerging skills, trades, and technical careers. Collectively, these wins highlight continued demand we see in immersive AI-enabled tools that simplify adoption for educators, deepen engagement for students, and help districts strengthen both academic and workforce outcomes. In addition to support our global expansion and ensure accessibility across various educational geographies we're strategically leveraging artificial intelligence to eliminate language barriers AI is enabling quick and efficient translation across our platform including website content and application interfaces and providing tools that can understand and interact in over 50 languages this This initiative not only expands our global reach, but ensures students and educators, regardless of their native language, can fully utilize ZSpace's award-winning educational experiences, significantly broadening our global reach. In closing, we remain confident in the long-term growth potential of ZSpace and our ability to deliver on our vision. That said, we approach 2026 with continued cautious optimism, given the ongoing uncertainty and the macro environment in the education market in the U.S. In addition, due to the war in Iran, we are seeing opportunities in the Middle East being We continue to believe that as the federal education policy continues to take shape and funding mechanisms become more predictable the longer term outlook for our business will strengthen with that I will turn the call over to Eric to walk you through our financial results in more detail Eric thank you Paul as we

consider our results a reminder that our revenues are substantially recognized upon shipment of laptop units or fulfillment of software license keys this includes recognizing the full value of multi-year software licenses in the period in which they are filled only a small portion of our revenue is rapidly recognized as a result of this revenue recognition treatment our financial results can exhibit quarter to quarter and year-over-year variability that exaggerates the underlying seasonality of the business throughout 2025 we saw dual themes of internal execution success driving product innovation quality of revenues and spend management opposed by external headwinds from tariff policy freezes in education funding and the longest federal government shutdown in US history to close out the year both internal and external themes played familiar roles in our financial performance through the period ending December 31st and now diving into our full-year performance revenues were twenty seven point nine million dollars down twenty seven percent I've noted throughout the year software and services revenues outperform down only fifteen percent in comparison to total revenues and making up forty nine percent of the revenue portfolio up from 42 percent in 2024 a seven percentage point improvement this was an important driver of gross margin expansion as previously discussed our pnl reflects multi-year software license revenue in period to help better characterize the run rate health of the business, we offer two non-GAAP software operating metrics. As of December 31st, 2025, the annualized contract value of renewable software was $9.9 million, down 12% compared with 12 months ago. Also, as of December 31st, 2025, the net dollar revenue retention of customers with at least $50,000 of ACV was 71% for those customers present as of December 31st, 2024. Unfavorable performance on these two metrics is attributable to two large customers who collectively expanded their zSpace footprint in 2024, but for whom macro factors prevented full renewal of their expanded commitment. Normalizing for these two customers, ACV would have been $11.1 million, or down 2%, and MDRR would have been 88%, pointing to wider stability across the customer base. Bookings for the 12-month period ending December 31st were $26.1 million, down 34% year-over-year. Gross profit was $13.3 million, down 15% against the same period last year. This includes a one-time charge for discontinued software license inventory, which is at once related to our exit of China and also our continued efforts to bring previously resold third-party titles in-house for both acquisition of applications and internal developments. gross profit was also affected by applicable tariffs and duties. 2025 gross margins were 47.6%, up 6.7 percentage points versus 2024. Factors driving improved quality of revenue were sustained throughout the year and highlighted in our quarterly results. Firstly, favorable growth in the mix of software content of our revenues drove two and a half percentage points of margin. Secondly, product line refreshes in our hardware ecosystem led by the Inspire 2 platform reduced our bill of materials costs. Thirdly, increased first-party zSpace software content combined with those hardware improvements for a total of 4.2 percentage points of margin, delivering the total 6.7 percentage points of gross margin expansion across the 12-month period. 2025 operating expenses of $28.3 million, excluding stock-based compensation, were up 11%. People-related costs, which make up 66% of 2025 OPEX, were up 6% year-over-year, again excluding stock-based compensation. As a result of corporate restructuring efforts in December 2025, management believes that our current OPEX run rate is closer to $19 million, still excluding stock-based comp, assuming stability of the current external environment. And now for the fourth quarter, Q4 revenues of $4.8 million were down 43% year-over-year reflecting what amounted to a freeze in both orders and shipments during the U.S. federal government shutdown. For business secured during the effectively truncated quarter, revenue mix trends continued to be in evidence. Software and services represented 57% of total revenues, a 10 percentage point mix shift with significant gross margin implications, with hardware revenues falling below 50% for the second quarter in a row. Bookings for the three-month period ending December 31st were $3.4 million, down 21% year-over-year. CTE customers drove 56% of bookings value, down from 58% in Q424. Gross profit was $2.4 million, and gross margins were 49.1%, up 8.4 percentage points, versus Q424. This lapsed the 6 percentage point margin expansion in that quarter, and continues the improvements in profitability we have been delivering. Within the quarter, the 10 percentage point mixed shift in revenues was responsible for 2.8 percentage points of margin gain. rate-based factors drove 5.6 percentage points of improvement. Operating expenses of $6.5 million for the quarter, excluding stock-based compensation, were up 9% year-over-year. Our Q4 reported results include $2 million in stock-based compensation expense, attributable to grants made as part of our employee Equity Incentive Program. Relative to the 22.8 million shares issued and outstanding at the start of the year, we managed issuance of RSUs to a target burn rate of 6.2% or 1.4 million RSUs, well below our 7% target. As of December 31st, 2025, Zspace had approximately $1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash compared to 4.9 million dollars in cash cash equivalents and restricted cash as of December 31st 2024 our path to profitability continues to run through revenue growth via operating leverage our ongoing expansion of gross margins and tight stewardship of operating expenses while overall revenues are challenged by headwinds in the US k-12 market our success in deriving more of the revenue portfolio from software is bearing fruit the gross margin expansions from revenue mix shift into software from additional first party software and from new hardware product releases are now part of our track record in delivering results as part of our ongoing attention to operating expenses we undertook a significant restructuring in December 2025 that resulted in eliminating approximately half the FTE positions of zSpace across all levels and one-third of the people costs. We further reduced the size of our board of directors from seven seats to five and abolished the executive bonus plan for 2026. Our consideration of these factors was made with the intention of aligning revenues and costs and putting a break-even EBITDA performance in reach for 2026. Now moving on to our outlook for 2026. Familiar Other obstacles such as trade and tariff policies remain steadfastly unresolved, although promising developments have materialized. And the macroeconomic picture remains persistently volatile. These external factors present the same challenges to forecasting that we identified last year. Management's approach to 2026 was to consider the scenario in which we see a repeat of 2025's revenue performance and what it would take to weather such an environment if 2026 presents a second year of top-line volumes similar to 2025 we believe the cost reductions made in December will allow us to deliver an adjusted EBITDA performance at or close to break-even we further believe that the company retains sufficient resources to scale back up to historical revenue highs and And, in the event that opportunities for outperformance beyond that should appear, we will consider responsible reinvestment in the business at that time. We do not yet feel strongly enough about our ability to restore guidance on a sustained basis and want to avoid offering guidance in one quarter only to rescind the practice in the subsequent quarter. We will continue to manage the quality and mix of revenues for continued gross margin expansion, as we've demonstrated over the past year, as well as tight control of operating expenses, as these are our two best levers for positioning the company to capture upside until our K-12 markets in the U.S. stabilize. Now I will turn the time back to the operator for Q&A. Thank you, sir.

And as a reminder, to ask a question, press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press star 1-1 again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from the line of Alex Paris with Barrington Research. Please proceed.

Thank you, Operator. And hi, Paul and Eric. Thanks for taking my questions. start off with the macro maybe 2025 was obviously a tough year for k-12 the industry in general due to perceived funding disruptions including department of education layoffs and interagency transfers of responsibilities not to mention tariffs and and the government shutdown And as I recall, about 10% of your K-12 STEM revenue comes from federal sources, if I'm not mistaken. So despite what was going on in 2025, most federal dollars came through. I know there was uncertainty, which probably made school districts hesitant to order or renew and things like that. But most of those dollars came through. And the government shutdown is essentially over, with the exception of DHS currently. What does the funding outlet look like for 2026? I know you expressed some cautious optimism. And then how has Q1 gone so far? I know a lot of the revenue comes in the last 10 days of the quarter, but maybe talk about January, February.

Sure. Alex, this is Paul here. You know, by the way, about 10% of the funding in K-12 in our market does come from the federal side of things, so you're correct. That being said, particularly in the middle part of last year, Q2, Q3, we saw some very peculiar things. I can't recall whether we had this conversation previously, but there was one specific state in the middle part of the country that actually sent money back to the federal government because of the uncertainty. and obviously their discomfort given all the headwinds and all the stopping and starting of funding. So you're correct with the 10% number. However, I would say the ramifications and implications to our specific buyers, both in the K-12 STEM as well as in career and technical education made them really hesitant and hesitate to hesitate to move things forward. So I think that was a big part of the middle of last year, Q2, Q3. Then I think in the fourth quarter, you know, and we had business that in towards the end of the year, it was impacted by the government shutdown. And maybe it was an excuse, but, you know, those facts were pretty, you know, it was pretty straightforward. That's what we were being told by a number of different school districts. So, I know it's sounding like I'm making excuses here, but it was not the year that we wanted by any means, no surprise there. Although I do believe things, and again, cautious optimism things are starting to settle and that's the best answer I can give you kind of you know looking I'll say you know looking back at last year and the in the funding and then you know this year I'll maybe let Eric talk a little bit about the outlook and here we are it's March 30th we're not going to be done the quarter but we're pretty close when you asked about January

February. Yeah happy to pick up from there Paul. What I'd say about the outlook for Q1 firstly requires an understanding that our Q1 is ridiculously back-end loaded both in terms of bookings and shipments and some of those on this call will recall Q1 of last year when with only a few days left in the quarter we ultimately wound up outperforming our guidance by something like 30 percent now that said we earlier in this quarter the year started out and we were observing some encouraging year-on-year strength through January and February in March the picture has become more mick in large part because a number of our significant customer opportunities were customers that had previously started their z-space relationship and are based in the Middle East and are therefore in the midst of the current conflict there so it remains an open question even with you know 48 hours less in the quarter how much of that volume will actually ship and be accepted to to capture his revenue in the quarter what I think I would say is the experience earlier in the year has given us some sense that the market you know has resumed its willingness to open their wallets so to speak and actually take possession and book new ZSpace content. But our progress clearly has not been linear for much of the last 12 or 15 months. Okay, understood. And then just to point

a clarification, Eric, one of your last comments and the prepared comments, if revenues were roughly equal to what they were in 2025, so say around $28 million, you're saying that the hope or target is to get close to adjusted EBITDA profitability or break even, at least, versus a current consensus of negative $12.5 million for 2026 adjusted EBITDA.

Correct. And the two big levers there. So we, in the absence of actually being able to forecast in the current environment, we engaged in some scenario planning and said, you know what, there are a lot of factors driving revenue that have proven themselves to be out of management's control but if we saw a repeat of a you know twenty seven twenty eight million dollar year what are the factors in our hands and to that end our ability to expand gross margins by approximately seven percentage points year on year and to sustain the underlying business drivers that deliver that margin expansion coupled with the cost reductions we took in December we believe put something close to a break-even EBITDA performance within reach for 2026. Now obviously as we move through the year the revenue performance and the operating leverage we see on that will be the biggest driver but we feel pretty good around our improvements around quality of revenue that delivered that margin expansion again it all comes back to our ability to retain and renew existing software agreements, our ability to continue delivering hardware improvements that reduce that cost of initial deployment, and also to roll out more ZSpace-owned software where we just control more of the margin.

Okay. You know, in the absence of formal guidance, that's pretty helpful. and reasonable, you know, reasonable sort of conversation regarding what 2026 might look like. My last question for now, and I'll get back in the queue, is I just wanted to talk a little bit about that strategic investment from Planet One in late January, $3 million convertible preferred. But the really exciting thing there was the potential to expand international sales, perhaps through cooperation or a joint venture, based on what your press release said. What are you thinking there, and is that a potential opportunity in 2026?

Let me take that, Alex. The answer is we hope so. And the war in Iran just really put everything kind of on the back burner for obvious reasons. Eric alluded, so the answer is we think so, and it's something that we're still pursuing. There are some other opportunities, Eric alluded to in his commentary, in the Middle East, even some bigger ones, and we're hoping those come back.

Great. All right, thanks. I appreciate the additional color. I'll get back in the queue.

Thanks, Alec. Thank you so much. And as a reminder, if you do have a question, simply press star 1-1 to get in the queue. Our next question is from Rohit Kulkarni with Roth Capital Partners. Please proceed.

Hey, thanks. Thank you, Paul and Eric. A couple of questions to kick this off. Can you frame kind of size, scale, scope of these kind of recent announcements in the PR, Greater Altoona, Bellflower Mayfair High School, and Atlanta Public Schools? Just talk about how they came about and how significant do you feel they could be for 2026, just from direct contribution as well as incremental on top of the base of 25?

Yeah, let me take that, Rohit, this fall. Every one of those deals was, I'll put it in the significant category. You know, they're in the six figures. They have the potential, Atlanta being a very large school, District APS, Atlanta schools, which, as I mentioned, they've been our customer for 10 years. And we see some other, I don't want to jinx us, but we see some other opportunities within that specific district late this year. So all of them, I'll put them in the category of substantial. Greater Altoona was in the CTE segment in a very specific in the dental component of it. I would again say strategic, you know, Mayfair out here, again, a school system here in California that is new, newer customer. And so we have a combination of both newer customers and existing customers purchasing more. And I'm going to go back to something else. Eric kind of touched on it. I touched on it on my opening remark. Over 50% of our revenue in the fourth quarter was software and services. And the way we look at the business and the way I look at the business is anytime we're over 50% in that category, it's a really good thing. Now, by the way, we also had a bunch of other changes we made in the fourth quarter. So that's the best summary I can give you. You know, the other thing that, Rohit, I'm going to reemphasize is the Z-Stylus one, which I mentioned, which is the new, doesn't require the little device on the side. There's clearly a lower bond because we have one less device. and the implications for it, including how we're using AI in the process. We're super bullish on it. We're early in the shift in service field, but we feel really, really positive about it.

Okay, great. I guess you mentioned CTE, Paul. How is the mix today versus previous periods, And is CTE growing as compared to the shrinking on the other side of the business? Maybe comment on that.

Yeah, so CTE is more than 60%. I think the exact number is 56% versus 48%, Eric, in the previous year. Sorry. Yes. So it continues to grow. And some of that, Rohit, had to do with the funding. And, again, Alex was asking the questions about the funding. You know, Perkins is a big pot of money in the CTE world that is federal funding that, you know, has continued to expand, and it's an annuity. But the CTE side of the business, and by the way, along with the applications that we own and control, has continued to grow for us.

Okay, great. Great. And in terms of, I think, just drawing out what the previous question was around kind of run rate OPEX and kind of run rate revenues that may lead us to a point not too far out in the future that you could have breakeven operating cash flows or an even kind of positive EBITDA. Is that something that you feel reasonable to expect in 26, assuming a modest shrinkage in revenues, but a pretty significant drop in your expenses?

Hi, Rohit. This is Eric. I'll take that one. That's our current outlook through the combination of continued margin expansion and the expense cuts we took in December. Remember, we think that our run rate OPEX is closer to $19 million, again, excluding stock-based compensation, and with continued margin gains and a top line that looks relatively like last year, that could put a break-even adjusted EBITDA performance in front of us.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for this color, and we'll catch up soon.

Thank you and at this time this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Kellenberger for closing remarks.

Thank you, Carmen. We'd like to thank everyone for listening in to today's call and we look forward to speaking with you when we report our first quarter 2026 results. Thanks again for joining us.

And ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.